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Hello!
This summer has been one long one on the road with very few days at home. A few random guests staying means that the recording/filming space get de-rigged. Things don't calm down again for a little while.So I'll try to clear the backlog of old videos that I never finished, so for a couple of weeks there is going to be a random trickle of odd things going up!

It is now less than a week until the epic weekend that is Harpas at Halsway - so full on preparations are in swing. There will be new videos going up from the weekend and as usual I am teaching some tunes from Småland, so watch out for the next batch of those!

I filmed quite a bit of the Scottish Smallpipe tutor back before we hit the road so we have Chapter 5 511 The Community Brawl added to the site. I also added the next section which is Chapter 5 Part 6.

We've added two more of the Alan Winston dance tunes: Dokis Island by Kendall Rogers and Spring Thaw by Patti Cobb. I also added a page for dances written by Neil Stuart. We play enough of Neil's dances at Symmetry to warrant making a dedicated page. I've started by adding his minor variation of Sheebeg Sheemore to it. (Thank you Neil!) A while back three more tracks got added to the Kitty Bridges dance page. (I forgot to put those into the weekly updates)

I added The Nudge (change tune to The Slip) and Prince Rupert's Socks (change tune to Prince Rupert's March) to the website. Cotton Cottage now has a duo video added to it.

I finally managed to get the Symmetry Dance edited from the 17th August, so that is up and ready to watch. (I still have one ball and one Symmetry left to edit, so hopefully one of those will turn up next week!)
More soon!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
We had an amazing time at Sidmouth last week. But our schedule was totally filled with dances and concerts, so there was absolutely no time for updates to the website. However I did do a daily #tunecam. I ended up with 10 during the week and then a bonus 2 once we got home. I've added them to a special blog entry so I don't clutter this entry up too much. You'll find that here.

One of the TuneCam videos was of Silence in the Rain - I have now updated that lesson to include a proper duo version and articulations as well as the live video (with dancers!)
New Ambient Waltz now also has a duo version and a TuneCam from Sidmouth added to it.
On the Moraharpa we have the final tune from Praetorius - Gilotte.
For the Scottish Smallpipes I've added lesson 506 The Partridge and the next lesson 508-510!

This week we're being medieval in the week, then playing for Contra on Friday, a Regency Ball on Saturday and then Symmetry on Sunday!
Hopefully another update soon!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
We had Symmetry this week and the video is ready for watching! It's been a busy week where I've recorded all the audio for a little Regency dance CD that we are going to have out for the Rose Ball in September. It's going to be quite a simple CD with no layering on - just me on flute/nyckelharpa and Jonny on piano. That was quite an intense three days of hyper focus on recording!

So what's new on the site this week?
On the flute we have Salamanca Castanets - I love this tune so much!
On the Scottish Smallpipes we have Chapter 5 No. 507 The Fancy Fool. I accidentally uploaded the wrong video - so next week I'll fix this and have uploaded 506!
On the Moraharpa we have Gavotte No 4!
On the nyckelharpa we have The Stranger Companion
We had some request tunes to be recorded for dance, so here are a couple of bonus videos: "Dance Tune #2" by Debbie Jackson for the dance Baggage and "Mando #3" by Larry Unger for the dance Open Skies.

That's all for this week! I suspect next week's update will either be late or merged with the week after as we'll be at Sidmouth all week and internet might be patchy!
Enjoy the summer!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
Last week was totally nuts! So of course I'm late again this week. We can't talk about what we did last Wednesday just yet - but as soon as it's released (September hopefully) I will absolutely spill all the beans. It was big!

So what is new? We filmed and recorded January Girl by Brian Jenkins and New Dawn New Day by David Kaynor and added them to the Dance Video Resources section of the site.

We had Symmetry last week and the video is now up and ready for watching and playing along to.
I added Zephyrs and Flora for the Nyckelharpa. I added a duo version to Find the Mole.
On Moraharpa we have Gavotte No. 3 from Praetorius!
On the Scottish Smallpipes we have a tune called The Whimsey.
On the flute we have The Bath Waltz - a nice little Regency Waltz.

We've just had Symmetry, so the video will come out in the next update - which hopefully will be this week!
Enjoy the summer!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
It's been so hot! We've been away in Stockholm, so this week we have another bi-weekly update! We went to the exhibition at the Nation Museum by Ernst Bilgren. It was the most incredible thing I've ever seen, so I definitely recommend going to see it if you find yourself in Stockholm before the 4th October. Make sure you watch out for the tiny little paintings on the chairs too! And see if you can find the little musician in the picture above!

We have a lovely little waltz on the nyckelharpa - Linnéavalsen and also a Playford style tune called Always Love Thee More. We now also have a duo version of The Little Pard and I've added articulations to the waltz. I wrote that tune to go with the Dood Night Kiss.
I've started a little five part video series on some Gavotte's by Praetorius on the moraharpa and this is number two - Gavotte No. 2 Praetorius.
On the flute we have a lovely tune called Turning by Threes. It's a modern dance tune, but it's lovely and we're asked to play it quite a lot, so now we have the lesson with articulations and grace notes for it.
I have finally started work on chapter 5 for the Scottish Smallpipe tutor book. My first job is to turn it from the CDrom version into lessons on this site and then the second job is to re-film it. So here is Chapter 5 Part 1. (It's going to take me some time to get to the second job).

I am working on a summer of scales - I'm preparing it at the moment, so if you're up for a challenge buckle up - scales are coming!

That's all for this week! We have Symmetry on Tuesday at 7pm UK time. Hope to see you there!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
Last week was a week on the road and of course I've got behind! So I am rolling last week and this week into one update. There has been a lot of dancing, so we have two balls and a Zoom dance!

Our fourth ball of the season was the Meryton Mob Regency Ball. A lot of fun and in a very beautiful church. Our fifth Ball of the season was the Alton Summer Regency Ball as part of the Jane Austen festival in Alton. Definitely the hottest dance of the season! So hot that Jonny had to take his jacket off. It was hard not to remember the Pride and Predjudice 1995 moment of Mr Darcy and the lake. (Watch the video and you'll see). On Tuesday we had the Symmetry Zoom Dance.

I added St Albans Assembly on the flute. I also added The Willows on the Scottish Smallpipes. A New Rigadoon on the fiddleharpa (but you'll find it in the Henry Purcell part of the site) and finally Gavotte No. 1 on the moraharpa. I have also added a duo version of Emily's Waltz by Jonny.

There are so many videos for me to upload and process! Maybe I'll catch up once we get to July!
Stay safe!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
It seems like summer is here at last and I chose the hottest day to hide in my little recording room and film. I sweated buckets! I had hoped to get a bunch of videos done for all the instruments, but I only managed to get nyckelharpa, Scottish Smallpipes and flute in this sitting. I'll try for the others tomorrow!

We had our third ball of the season last weekend and now you can watch the St Albans Regency Ball at your leisure. As usual you don't get to see the dancers - but as it gets dark you can see them reflected in the window! Another ball this week!

What else did I add?
On the Scottish Smallpipes we have the intense Odd Socks. It's one of our older tunes that I hadn't played in years, but I am determined to preserve every tune we've ever written and it means going back to the start!
On the flute we have The Anniversary. We're doing so much music for all the balls that it makes sense to work my way through those, especially on the flute!
One the nyckelharpa we have my waltz Viggo's Vaggvisa.
More next week!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
I can't believe that it's June already and I have another late entry! I went straight from three days down at Halsway Manor for the Playford Assembly then straight to two days in a London studio recording for a games sound track (I'm not allowed to talk about it as I'm under NDA, however others can.) Then I went straight to Symmetry and then more remote recording for sound tracks - it's been quite full on. Since then it was also medieval and another ball. I mentioned this bulging folder of videos to upload. I wanted to upload them so I had an even spread of things but I think it's time to do a bulk upload and try to clear the backlog! Some of these videos I will be setting up as premieres so I can upload them, schedule them and then let them trickle onto YouTube.

We had a Symmetry dance this week and I have finally managed to get this edited and uploaded. There were two tunes from the Playford Dancing Master of 1651. So I also exported those two as stand alone videos and added them to the lesson pages. In the back of my head I think it would be nice to have duo videos for all 105 tunes. But that might take a while! You never know! (I'm not going to go and count how many we have done right now as I need to send this!) So check out Half Hannekin and Nonsuch. I also did the same with Millison's Jig from a couple of weeks ago.

I'm trying to get all of our tunes uploaded and saved for posterity and I'm still working through the waltzes! So this week we have a new duo version of One for Diana and Carrock Fell.

We also have the lesson for Lollicowlero, it's a change tune challenge.

Sometimes an old gem of a video unearths. My sister found a video of me playing a double bass concerto back in 1996, so here it is for you to enjoy - Dragonetti.

That's all for now! More on Friday!
:))
Vicki

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Hello!
It's been a week of recording for various remote recording sessions. I'm in the middle of three different projects and I like to get these turned around as fast as possible. So what have I been up to this week?

I managed to complete the video from our Second Ball of the season. So I can now present to you The Bridge Town Masquerade Ball. The music pad includes what I played for the Beyoncé track, so have fun with that! It's not everything from the evening (this is usually because either I forget to hit record on the camera or Jonny forgets to hit record on the desk). We're at Halsway this weekend, so I may get some more videos!

I created a mosaic for the Dance Department of Sidmouth Folk Festival. I chose the Female Saylor as the tune. The original lesson I made for this tune is here. Great tune!

I've added a duo video of Rosey Jones, the musical dots have articulations and grace notes.
I've also added King of the Giants to the site.
On the Fiddleharpa I've added the Zen scale of F major one octave.

I have a big folder full of videos that I need to upload! So I will try to get that done over the next week. Once these are all added I'll get the camera out again! I especially want to film some moraharpa and some new flute tunes!
:))
Vicki